Coming Up In 2011 #3: My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

What I really love about this feature I have been running is how passionately authors come across about their work. These are people who write for the love og writing and because they have stories to tell; they are not in it for the money or fame (of which there is often little of either in the ever-competitive children's and YA market). My thanks got to Annabel Pitcher for her contribution to this feature, and to Nina Douglas at Orion for facilitating this one.

Imagine a terrorist attack.  A huge one.  Mass explosions in the centre of London.

Imagine a sister.  A dead one.  Blown up by a bomb in Trafalgar Square.

Imagine a dad.  An alcoholic.  Blames all Muslims for the death of his daughter.

And imagine Jamie.  A ten year old boy.  Desperate to hide a secret friend from his father...

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is my first novel, out on March 1st, and I am very excited to introduce it to you.  Jamie Matthews narrates the story, a boy who’s never cried about his dead sister and can’t wait to chuck the ashes that live in the urn on the mantelpiece so that everyone can forget Rose and move on.  Jamie’s far more interested in playing football, watching Spiderman and getting his own back on a bully.  Oh – and in keeping his new friend a secret from his drunk and racist father.

There are fights.  There are jokes.  There’s a clever twist.  My brother who hates reading missed Match of the Day to finish it.  ‘It wasn’t bad for a book,’ he said.  I hope you like it too.

My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece is scheduled to be published in March, expect a review to appear on The Book Zone sometime in the future.